Syrian government forces have launched a counter-offensive under the cover of air strikes in a bid to regain control of areas lost to insurgents the day before in the city of Aleppo, activists and state media say.
Saturday's offensive came a day after Syrian rebels launched a broad ground attack aiming to break a weeks-long government siege on the eastern rebel-held neighbourhoods of Syria's largest city.
The insurgents were able to capture much of the western neighbourhood of Assad where much of Saturday's fighting was concentrated, according to the Syrian army and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory said the new offensive by Syrian troops and their allies was ongoing under the cover of Russian and Syrian air strikes.
The Syrian army command said troops and their allies were pounding insurgent positions with artillery shells and rockets, adding that "all kinds of weapons" are being used in the fighting in the Assad neighbourhood.
Later on Saturday, the rebels said they launched an attack on the Zahraa neighbourhood in western Aleppo to try and capture it from government forces. The attack began with a massive explosion that struck government positions on the front line, said Yasser al-Yousef of the Nour el-Din el-Zinki group, a main faction in Aleppo.
The Syrian army said troops were repelling the attack on Zahraa after the offensive began when insurgents detonated a vehicle and shelled the area.
Syrian state media said rebels shelled government-held western neighbourhoods of Aleppo on Saturday morning wounding at least 10 people, including a young girl.
Rebel shelling of Aleppo on Friday killed 15 and wounded more than 100.
East Aleppo has been subjected to a ferocious campaign of aerial attacks by Russian and Syrian government warplanes, and hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks, according to opposition activists and trapped residents.
The new offensive by insurgents is the second attempt to break the government's siege of Aleppo's opposition-held eastern districts, where the UN estimates 275,000 people are trapped.
Aleppo is the current focal point of the war. President Bashar Assad has said he is determined to retake the country's largest city and former commercial capital.
